Posted on March 4th, 2010It’s important to get a good web host for your blog, have some peace of mind and concentrate more on your blogging efforts than worrying about annoying web hosting issues. It’s quite common to see customers pissed off by their web hosts or should I say major web hosting companies. It may happen to anyone particularly when you’re new to this industry and also to hosting issues. Many customers do tend to get occupied about hosting issues while finding ways to sort them out.
Well, here are five things you need to do while looking for the best web hosting that suits your requirements.
1. Understand Your Requirements: The first step in understanding your blog requirements is to consider you blog’s main objectives. Suppose your goal is to blog about cool freeware while providing downloadable files, then you should find a web host that offers large bandwidth and if your blogging objective is to sell products, find a web host with good e-commerce support and enhanced security.
2. Evaluate Their Uptime: It is the time when a web server humming and running smoothly without any interruptions. Good web hosting companies should have a very high uptime percentage, say 99.95% uptime. It actually shows the technical reliability of a web host. I don’t think any customer would like their busy blogs inaccessible due to a lengthy server downtime. Often a 99% uptime simply means three days of downtime each year and trust me that is too long for a heavy-traffic blog to go down. If your blog is for commercial purposes, you should calculate the potential daily losses. So, it is better find a web hosting service that offers you the best uptime guarantee.
3. Attractive Pricing: There are a lot of good web hosts where hosting starts at only $4-5 a month. It’s a quite reasonable amount for a good hosting package. You can always upgrade your hosting package depending upon your requirements and needs. Make sure you get: good technical support, free setup, and money back guarantee.
4. Hosting Features: Be sure to read through the entire list of what your hosting company is offering you. Regardless of the hosting package price, it’s your right to obtain the best service possible and also to get what is promised by the web host. You shouldn’t settle for anything less and always ask the web host for any questions you have, it is their job to answer your questions and clear your doubts. You may choose for unlimited bandwidth and space which is usually offered by top web hosts and if you are careful, there should be no harm in choosing it. Beware of traffic spike on your blog. Especially if you promote your blog on popular social media sites like Stumbleupon and Digg then you need to watch for a burst of traffic because there must be a hidden limit set by your web host. The often used limit is “CPU limit”, ask your web host if they apply such a limit and try to stay below the line.
5. Free Scripts Installation: Getting a web hosting service that doesn’t offer an instant blog engine installation (e.g. WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, PHPBB for forums, and more) is a complete waste of money. Get the highest value for your investment and choose a web host that offers easy automated features service. Also stay away from web hosts that still use outdated CMS version.
Also keep these important things in mind:
• If you ever have a critical issue with your web host, don’t hesitate to migrate to a better web host. Of course, it takes some efforts and even money to transfer a well-matured blog to another company but it’s better to have what you need than have something you don’t want.
• It’s essential to find a web hosting service that is good at customer service, responds to your issues and offers technical support 24/7.
• Don’t forget to study the TOS thoroughly.